Ronald Reagan - "Welcome to the Republican Party"

I will try to look for the documented stats that I remember reading. It was interesting. 

I agree that prohibiting guns wouldn't necessarily cause an increase in the amount of  robberies, stabbings, or other violent attacks. (It may it may not)

Prohibiting firearms would decrease the ability of the victim to defend themselves when those attacks occur. So the outcome of those attacks may change. 

I don't know if we can necessarily compare ourselves to Australia or Europe or other countries in that way. We have a very different culture and society. A different type of violence different types of crime different mental health issues etc. 

I think we have a plethora of empirical evidence that prohibiting gun ownership not only doesn't increase the incidence of violent crime; it decreases it. (Again, research what happened in Australia, a country that changed from Wild West to modern Europe re gun laws in just a few years.)

Let's toss aside the silly shibboleth that having a gun will enable you to defend yourself from physical attacks. Maybe if you already have your hand on it. Maybe if you're fully alert. Maybe if your attacker comes at you head-on and not from behind you. Maybe if you're standing and not seated or lying down. Maybe if there's enough light for you to see. Otherwise...not so much. I'll concede that MAYBE having a gun MIGHT improve your chances. But have you considered that it might get you killed? Someone approaches you with (you think) foul intent. You whip out your gun and shout, "Hold it right there!" Except...the guy approaching already had his gun out, and now he thinks you're going to shoot him, so...BLAM! Maybe if you'd been unarmed, all he would have done is rob you. It's faulty to think that firearms will always, or even often, de-escalate a situation.

In terms of culture and society, the US and Europe (and Australia) are very, very similar. Constitutional democracies, secular governments, human rights, strong economies, social welfare, etc. etc. The problems that plague us plague them as well. We think in pretty much the same ways. They decided, some time ago, to suppress firearm ownership and usage. They didn't have any "founding documents" to refer to; they had a horrific history to incentivize them. 

You're completely wrong, though, when you imply that we have different "mental health issues" than they do. That's, well...nonsense. Do we suffer from different diseases, medical conditions, etc. than they do? Of course not. "Mental health issues" are part of the human condition and not distinctive of any nation, culture, or race.

Even if the Second Amendment had crystal-clear justifications back then (and Mark pointed out why even that isn't all that true), it has NO justifications now. People don't need to pack heat. We don't need to form a militia. And if we want to revolt against a tyrannical government, well, that Colt .45 ain't gonna help much.

By different mental health issues I meant things like suffering from different illnesses at different rates, different medical systems, different styles of treatment, different services available etc. 

Most gun owners aren't some crazed macho Hollywood stereotype with an itchy trigger finger ready to shoot at any bump in the night. 

Most people that I know who own or carry don't go around advertising it and most people would never know.

I think you would be surprised at how many people you interact with on a day-to-day basis are carrying and you don't know it. 

As to your scenario example: why would I ever point my firearm because I "think" someone is approaching with ill intent? A firearm is a tool of last resort when there is an imminent threat of death or great bodily injury. 

There are other tools that are appropriate for threats of ordinary physical force. 

I know several people who carry and none of them want to ever have to use it. 

Anecdotally I know a few people who would likely not be with us today if they did not have their firearm on them. Thankfully they didn't have to discharge it. 

You're in favor of banning guns / gun ownership / gun usage in the US; that's your granted free speech right for this thread. My question is..how and through which processes are you going to accomplish this in this country? You'll encounter very powerful opposing forces via lobby groups ( your friends at the NRA, etc), established statutes, SCOTUS precedence, an immensely powerful black market gun trade, and US public sentiment ( approximately 70+% support the Second Amendment, though a very high proportion also support new laws / control measures as well). Like it or not we have an exceedingly entrenched gun culture in the US with deep historical roots that include many failed legal challenges at both state and federal levels. In the end it's a tough row to hoe. But that's not necessarily a prohibitive deterrent for you, is it?

You've got two main avenues to at least partially arrive at where you think we should be re: gun control : the legislative process ( eg new gun control statutes at state /federal levels) and the constitutional amendment process ( altering or repealing the Second Amendment entirely). The latter would eventually involve an Article V convention which would require three-fourths of the states to ratify it. That's a tall mountain to scale when the public majority supports the Second Amendment.

You continually bring up Australia's milestone gun control measure from 1996 (NFA) which banned automatic and semi-automatic weapons among other regulatory changes. The data is beyond clear that this law has been very effective in controlling mass shootings and data show that total firearm deaths have decilned. There's heated debate within Australia regarding the NFA's real effect on actual firearm related suicides and/or homicides, however. You can look up that debate and see where you might fall regarding the NFA's true effectiveness.

The US has a vastly different national legal and cultural landscape vs Australia to begin with; we cannot and will not circumvent the existing gun statutes via the route the Aussies did because it's not possible due to our established legal processes vs theirs.

 Maybe a state gun law change approach might be your best initial attempt at gun reform even though a majority of Oregonians support the second amendment while favoring regulatory restrictions. Clean up Oregon first,,then fry bigger fish? Good luck.

The key to solving the difficulties you mention--and they are real--is not to repeal the Second Amendment but to reverse the Supreme Court ruling that misinterpreted it. Then, the issue can be resolved--or not--at the state level, as you suggest.

There's always been only one way to bring about positive social change in the US: a series of horrific events that result in the deaths of thousands. Natural disasters spawned FEMA, NOAA, etc. Lynching and race riots gave birth to the civil rights movement. And of course, Columbine, Sandy Hook, etc. keep happening, and every time, there's a surge in gun control advocacy. Then the NRA hands out some bags of gold bullion, and it all goes away. So maybe another string of mass shootings will fire up the debate again? Not that I want that to happen, but it certainly will. And then the cycle of hand-wringing and politician-buying will resume. Sigh.

Europe became pacifist and anti-gun after two bouts of horror and violence. Weve never had such an epiphany. To our culture, guns are saviors (might makes right), not killers. Whether or not that's bullshit is beside the point. It's what AMURRICA thinks and, more importantly, feels. We do govern from our gut more often than we'd like to admit.

So yeah, you're probably right; it's hopeless. The "right" to gun down anyone who frowns at you is deeply embedded in the American ethos. And it would take something seismic to cause enough people to question that.

There is no such right. Nobody is advocating that. 

That is a strawman. 

You are misrepresenting peoples positions and violating the rules of rational argumentation. 

My husband was a MAC Tools distributor for eight years.  When he drove his truck into a shop site some mechanics who owed him would run and hide, tell the others "tell him I'm off sick today."  Didn't appreciate his extending them credit.  It drove him nuts.  But I digress.  On the tool truck the mechanics could climb in and 'shop' like in a store.  Most, of course were honest, but now and then one would try to steal a ratchet or something.  He kept a gun handy during those stops.  I didn't agree, because what's the cost of a ratchet compared with his life, or the cost of defending himself in the event he shot somebody?

Careless incident:  A lady had her baby and her purse in the basket of her grocery cart.  Baby played with the purse which was unzipped.  Baby caused the gun to fire, killing momma right then and there.

Careless incident #2:  My husband again, different scene.  BFF had a very old, very small gun (it was cute) which she asked him to get appraised for her.  He put it in his jeans pocket, intending to take it somewhere after work.  Changed into work clothes at the shop, hung jeans up on a peg in the owner's shop.  I forget how it happened but his jeans fell from the peg, hit the floor, gun in the pocket fired a hole in the jeans and into the wall opposite the owner's desk, an almost lethal trajectory.  Just lucky nobody was in the way.  Did he know it had a bullet in the 'chamber'?  I don't remember.

I never had the desire to own or operate a gun.

Candy

Its called conjecture.  Kevin is good at that.

Candy

@ Kevin..

Nobody has the right to gun down anybody due to any kind of facial expression aimed at them, obviously.  Simultaneously, US citizens won't be colonizing Mars anytime soon. You're fully aware of both these facts, too. You stretched / embellished to bolster your argument , didn't ya? "C'mon, man!!"

Oh, yes, there is. At least in those "stand your ground" states. And functionally, no one who defends themselves, or "defends themselves," against an attacker will ever be prosecuted for dispensing lethal force in the process. 

In court case after court case, that issue has come up: whether people are allowed to present and use lethal force if they feel threatened. Note that I said FEEL threatened, not ARE threatened. Time and again, the courts have ruled that the defender had legitimate reason to fear for his/her safety. That "legitimate" reason has been as tenuous as, the attacker/potential attacker looked shady. (And one aspect of that is whether the subject is black or brown.)

Remember the celebrated court case where some vigilante "patrolling" the neighborhood gunned down a black teenager as he was returning home from the local 7/11? That guy was acquitted on appeal; the court agreed that he had been defending himself. Equally horrible and ludicrous.

You accuse me of presenting a straw man. Wrong-o, dude. I've read about dozens of court cases where someone unloads on someone else with only the flimsiest of pretexts. They're always acquitted/exonerated. 

And the above is why so many people grab their guns instead of, or at least before, calling the cops. They know they're "entitled" to dispense lethal force based on their own judgment. And who knows, if he saves the day, maybe the wife will reward him with hero sex. Oooh, give me your gun! Oooh!

You pretend that people pull out their guns only in an extremity: as a last resort. Maybe your gun-toting friends have that prudence and restraint. Bully for them. But for every person with such control, there are twenty who'll whip out their revolver whenever someone thinks at them in traffic.

Once again, if guns were banned, this wouldn't be an issue in the first place.